Pigeonpea: Alleviating the Poverty Cycle Sustainable Agriculture and Economic Development

Guatemala is the most malnourished nation-state in the Western hemisphere and considered a developing nation. The Guatemalan government and nonprofit organization Semilla Nueva are inquiring into what solutions, if any, can impact economic development through sustainable agriculture. This article will analyze the pigeon pea crop, considered a highly nutritious supplemental crop that can be planted between current cash crops maize and sesame for a nominal cost. Simultaneously, India is in high demand of the pigeon pea in its processed form dal, which is widely used in the Indian diet, as its citizens become less impoverished and increase the frequency and quality of daily food consumption. In brief, India’s high demand has been met in part by its own domestic production but primarily through importing dal and pigeon pea from Eastern and Southern Africa. This article will analyze the Indian market, the Eastern and Southern African export market, Guatemala’s poverty levels and current lentil export market. In conclusion, a recommendation will be formed on how to best implement the success of the African export market in Guatemala to rapidly introduce the pigeon pea crop on a wide scale of production in the nation-state to improve economic development initiatives through sustainable agriculture

Imipramine in the Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in Schizophrenic Spectrum Illnesses: Three Case Reports

It has long been known that obsessions and compulsions occur during the course of a schizophrenic illness (1- 7). It is, therefore, of interest that there has been little systematic research into the treatment of these symptoms in patients suffering from schizophrenia. It is possible that the meager research in this area is related both to the difficulty at times in differentiating signs of a psychotic decompensation in severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OeD) from those of schizophrenia; and to the significant amount of controversy regarding the function of obsessive compulsive symptoms in patients suffering from schizophrenia and related diseases. For example, Sullivan (3) was one of the first to note a relationship between schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder, and maintained that these conditions can shift from one to the other. Over 30 years ago, Rosen (4) studied 30 obsessive sch izophrenics and observed that the obsessions emerged either prior to, or concomitant with, the schizophrenic symptoms, and that none of the patients had received psychiatric treatment prior to the schizophrenic decompensation . The implication is that obsessions were not taken as seriously as the psychotic symptoms even though they had presaged serious illness. This is identical to one of the cases we will present

Magnitude of the Difference Between Clinic and Ambulatory Blood Pressures and Risk of Adverse Outcomes in Patients With Chronic Kidney Disease.

Background Obtaining 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure ( BP ) is recommended for the detection of masked or white-coat hypertension. Our objective was to determine whether the magnitude of the difference between ambulatory and clinic BP s has prognostic implications. Methods and Results We included 610 participants of the AASK (African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension) Cohort Study who had clinic and ambulatory BPs performed in close proximity in time. We used Cox models to determine the association between the absolute systolic BP ( SBP ) difference between clinic and awake ambulatory BPs (primary predictor) and death and end-stage renal disease. Of 610 AASK Cohort Study participants, 200 (32.8%) died during a median follow-up of 9.9 years; 178 (29.2%) developed end-stage renal disease. There was a U-shaped association between the clinic and ambulatory SBP difference with risk of death, but not end-stage renal disease. A 5- to <10-mm Hg higher clinic versus awake SBP (white-coat effect) was associated with a trend toward higher (adjusted) mortality risk (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.84; 95% CI, 0.94-3.56) compared with a 0- to <5-mm Hg clinic-awake SBP difference (reference group). A ≥10-mm Hg clinic-awake SBP difference was associated with even higher mortality risk (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.31; 95% CI, 1.27-4.22). A ≥-5-mm Hg clinic-awake SBP difference was also associated with higher mortality (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.82; 95% CI, 1.05-3.15) compared with the reference group. Conclusions A U-shaped association exists between the magnitude of the difference between clinic and ambulatory SBP and mortality. Higher clinic versus ambulatory BPs (as in white-coat effect) may be associated with higher risk of death in black patients with chronic kidney disease

Demonstrating Paraflow: Interactive fluid dynamics simulation with real-time visualization for augmented resin 3D printing

While resin 3D printers are seeing growing adoption in both manufacturing and personal fabrication settings, detecting print failures in real time remains challenging. Object-detection neural networks have shown benefits in a variety of extrusion-based 3D printing methods. Here, we extend such work to resin printing using a physics-informed machine learning data generation pipeline. Our approach leverages our models of the fluid dynamics of the printing process at every slice, in order to synthetically generate a library of print defects. We show such an approach is capable of providing data sufficiently resembling real-world failures to fine-tune a pre-trained custom defect detection neural network that can alert users of failure in real-time. Finally, to allow novice users to take advantage of our simulation platform, we integrate our tool into an interactive augmented reality interface, which displays simulation predictions to provide guidance on design and machine parameters prior to printing.Mechanical Engineerin

A new common functional coding variant at the DDC gene change renal enzyme activity and modify renal dopamine function.

The intra-renal dopamine (DA) system is highly expressed in the proximal tubule and contributes to Na+ and blood pressure homeostasis, as well as to the development of nephropathy. In the kidney, the enzyme DOPA Decarboxylase (DDC) originating from the circulation. We used a twin/family study design, followed by polymorphism association analysis at DDC locus to elucidate heritable influences on renal DA production. Dense single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping across the DDC locus on chromosome 7p12 was analyzed by re-sequencing guided by trait-associated genetic markers to discover the responsible genetic variation. We also characterized kinetics of the expressed DDC mutant enzyme. Systematic polymorphism screening across the 15-Exon DDC locus revealed a single coding variant in Exon-14 that was associated with DA excretion and multiple other renal traits indicating pleiotropy. When expressed and characterized in eukaryotic cells, the 462Gln variant displayed lower Vmax (maximal rate of product formation by an enzyme) (21.3 versus 44.9 nmol/min/mg) and lower Km (substrate concentration at which half-maximal product formation is achieved by an enzyme.)(36.2 versus 46.8 μM) than the wild-type (Arg462) allele. The highly heritable DA excretion trait is substantially influenced by a previously uncharacterized common coding variant (Arg462Gln) at the DDC gene that affects multiple renal tubular and glomerular traits, and predicts accelerated functional decline in chronic kidney disease

Mutations of c-Cbl in myeloid malignancies

Next generation sequencing has shown the frequent occurrence of point mutations in the ubiquitin E3 ligase c-Cbl in myeloid malignancies. Mouse models revealed a causal contribution of c-Cbl for the onset of such neoplasms. The point mutations typically cluster in the linker region and RING finger domain and affect both alleles by acquired uniparental disomy. The fast progress in the detection of c-Cbl mutations is contrasted by our scarce knowledge on their functional consequences. The c-Cbl protein displays several enzymatic functions by promoting the attachment of differentially composed ubiquitin chains and of the ubiquitin-like protein NEDD8 to its target proteins. In addition, c-Cbl functions as an adapter protein and undergoes phosphorylation-dependent inducible conformation changes. Studies on the impact of c-Cbl mutations on its functions as a dynamic and versatile adapter protein, its interactomes and on its various enzymatic activities are now important to allow the identification of druggable targets within the c-Cbl signaling network